Samsung Electronics has filed a complaint against Sharp over patents filed in the US by Samsung. Sharp earlier this month sued Samsung in South Korea and Texas, claiming patent violations over LCD technology, but apparently part of the controversy seems to be price-fixing between vendors such as LG, Sharp, Phillips and Samsung.
Likewise, Samsung has gone to the district court in Tokyo to stop the sales of LCD TVs that infringe upon Japanese patents that are owned by Samsung.
Perhaps the bottom will fall out of the LCD-TV market and if so, what does that mean for Samsung, especially since they have been found guilty of price fixing in the past, resulting in one of the largest fines (US) imposed upon a electronics company ever?
6 Comments
Perhaps Samsung has a patent nationalism in advertising? Have they ever beaten the Dokdo drum in their ads like some other companies do?
ALL Sharp LCD ads I’ve seen talk about how their panels are built in Japan, but fail to mention anything about the quality of the product itself.
Maybe this is the Samsung patent Sharp is infringing on?
Pan, you are as coherent and insightful as a pickle in a dish. If other alleged commentators are going to troll as you do above, I anticipate making deletions ahead.
Patent litigation has nothing to do with price fixing. I’m not sure why you make this connection.
Brendon, check the second and third link in the thread for the connection. There is more than just patent litigation going on currently.
Lawsuits in the tech world are usually just another form of negotiations, basically forcing each others hands into dealing on the table with certain issues that they might shy away from (especially between big companies, where legal fees amount to chump change).
A little while ago Hitachi sued Samsung (and vice versa) over hard drive patents, both saying they were using each others technology. Lo and behold, now they’ve both decided to work together and drop the lawsuits, as if they were old chums. Same deal with Samsung/Sony, who are closer allies than any other local partnerships.
Also, the RAM fixing fine, despite being huge, was still a paltry payment for the company; the profits they made were enough to cover it while simultaneously burying most of the smaller competitors and gaining a foothold as top dog in the market (to put things into perspectives, Samsung and co were able run out even Intel’s arm). No chance in hell any of these markets are gonna fall through, though I think lcd technology is already showing it’s age.
R. Elgin:
Actually I was poking fun at Sharp for beating the nationalism drum. I don’t know if Samsung has, but I’ve heard of other companies doing the same.
Notice I mentioned I’ve yet to see a Sharp commercial say anything about their LCD’s besides that they’re made in Japan.